World Chess Championship: Gukesh holds with black; Ding leads 14-game match 1.5-0.5

D Gukesh is not back on track in the World Chess Championship match yet, but he has regrouped himself. And that was good enough to pass as satisfactory as he drew the second game with black pieces against Ding Liren in Singapore on Tuesday.
World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen had predicted that after the reversal in the opening game with white, Gukesh won't be able to win the entire match the next day. He could also lose if he fumbled again, Carlsen told Take Take Take.
Gukesh returns to white in the third of the 14 classical games on Wednesday, before Thursday's rest day even as China's reigning champion retains his one-point lead with the scoreline of 1.5-0.5.
The second game was neither dramatic nor exceptional. Ding again decided the opening choice and the draw was forced after about two hours, 45 minutes and just 23 moves in the Italian Four Knights variation (also known as Guico Piano) where both players made seven knight moves. The players used the exception in the rule -three-fold repetition to split a point -as draw by agreement is not allowed before the 41st move.
The Italian opening has been played only three times in World Championship matches this century - in 2021, Carlsen beat Nepo with black and had two draws with Sergei Karjakin in 2016. But the Four Knights version was seen for the first time on Tuesday.
During their drawn face-off in the Sinquefield Cup in Saint Louis earlier this August, the players had used the Italian opening. Ding had also been involved in two more Italians in the same tournament against Anish Giri and Wesley So, but on Tuesday, he deviated to Four Knights variation.
Both bishops and queens were exchanged by the 13th move soon after they castled. But before that, Gukesh rightly refused the bait of taking Ding's a5 pawn.

The 32-year-old world No. 23 gave away the open 'd' file in hope of some counterplay but it was difficult to make any concrete progress with all eight pawns on the board. After spending considerable time on the board, the players decided it was not worth stretching things and took the game to a peaceful path with knight moves.
"The opening was not a huge surprise. It was one of the topical lines," Gukesh assessed the game afterwards, "I was just trying to recollect what I had seen. I had a fairly comfortable position. White had a very slight edge; but if Black is careful, which I was (it was not difficult to draw)."
After the recent experience of the opening defeat, the 18-year-old Indian challenger was understandably circumspect. Instead of talking about his skills, confidence and nerves management, he said, "One game at a time and hoping it will go my way."
Referring to Monday's defeat, Gukesh said, "We knew things could happen. Losing is a part of the game. It was not a shock. We were prepared (for that eventuality). And we are sticking to a plan."
Gukesh maintained that since Tuesday's game was nowhere close to a must-win situation, he wouldn't do anything stupid. "The only way to try and win is to play a good game," he said.
Ding revealed that he misplayed the opening prep even though he played the first 12 moves in four minutes compared to Gukesh's 24 minutes. However, five-time world champion V Anand was of the opinion during the official webcast that Ding had won the opening battle. "I could be slightly worse too. The basic idea was to play carefully," Ding said later, "I was completely fine with a draw."
On the third game Wednesday, Ding said, "I think it will be a big fight because my rival is a point down and he has white pieces. I am ready for a fight."
And for a change, he didn't sound merely optimistic.